Category Archives: the ongoing saga of my job

pandemic, the ongoing saga of my job, toledo 1 Comment

Back Downtown

Since Connor is attending a science camp downtown this week, I decided to request a temporary cube and work from the actual office instead of driving to and from downtown twice every day. Most of my team is now permanently remote, and the few of us who will be going back in-person a few days a week need to wait until our floor is fully renovated in September.

Facilities sent me a layout diagram and marked the cubes I could choose from, so I picked the cube closest to my boss’s boss. That totally paid off, as I got a tour of one of the renovated floors that’s identical to what ours will look like when it’s done. It actually looks… workable. But we’ll see.

Over my lunch break, I enjoyed an iced coffee outside (and finally used some of the birthday coffee funds from N)!

After work, I walked across the street to pick up Connor from camp, then we slogged through the heat and humidity to get back to the parking garage. On the way, we saw this great view of the High-Level Bridge, framed by the Junction building, and Connor convinced me to take a picture.

So… the last time I actually worked a full day downtown was October 2020. It surprises me to say, but it was satisfying to be back in a more formal work environment after working from home for so long.

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Dose Number One

I got my COVID-19 vaccine

Thanks to what’s known as a Closed Point Of Dispensing, I was able to receive the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine this morning, via my employer.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to be vaccinated… but there are so many others much more at risk than myself who should, by all rights, be getting this protection before me. My husband, an “essential worker” in the shipping industry, has been working as usual throughout the pandemic, and he’s unlikely to get vaccinated for weeks or months yet.

I’m scheduled to receive my second dose in four weeks, at which point I should only have a 6% chance of contracting and exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19.

(My birth control pill only had a 3% chance of failure back in 2011, though. Just sayin’.)

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Return To Worksite

Today was the day.

After 17 weeks of working from home, I drove in to the office for my first half-day on-site since the pandemic forced us all to quarantine.

My Totoro calendar says I was last at my desk on Monday, March 16.

I was one of three people present today in my team of nine total. To maintain appropriate distancing, we’re all rotating days in the office. I’m planning to be in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and more often when I can.

When the Stay-At-Home order was enacted in Ohio, and my department started working from home full-time, I wasn’t sure how I was going to take to it. Even after the first four or five weeks, when I finally got myself into a proper routine, I was chomping at the bit to get back into the office. It would have been quite a stretch for me to believe I’d get to a point where I prefer working from home… yet, here I am.

For one thing, I find that I’m more productive in the afternoons when I don’t have to plan around my evening commute. Working from home gives me as much time as I need to finish the last task of the day without needing to wrap up all the loose ends and prepare myself to come back to it later. I can’t just stay late in the actual office downtown, even though I might like to, because I need to get home and be the responsible parent to my almost-nine-year-old once his Dad leaves for work.

I’ve really been enjoying the extra sleep I get every morning from not having to get up in time to wrangle my son and then drive to work. My internal clock has gotten surprisingly good at waking me up around 7:10am.

Alas, that’s now when I wake on weekends, too.

Having the option to work in any spot in my house is a luxury I’ve taken for granted. I’ve gotten used to being able to choose my setting: the sunroom, the home office, the kitchen table. I found myself wishing for a change of scenery this afternoon, and for some fresh produce to snack on.

I go back in tomorrow, then work from home Thursday-Friday, then I’m in the office all next week while Connor’s at science camp. It’s going to be weird.

Everything is weird now. Even the things that used to be normal.